CAR Book Club: October 2024

Separating a very good book from a great one takes a lot. It has to compile years of history into a series of pages, while the writer keeps you hooked, no matter how far you’re through a chapter.

Ian Wagstaff and Porter Press impressed us massively on the effort that went into the Subaru Impreza WRC autobiography, which touched heavily into the ProDrive firm. This time however, we have a history publication of ProDrive itself – and it’s a must-have for any petrolhead if you’re shopping for an early Christmas gift.

But it’s not just blue and gold Imprezas that this book lays its glory on; there’s anything from its success with E30 BMW M3s in the BTCC and rallying series to a class win at Le Mans with the Aston Martin DBR9. But the highlights of ProDrive are complimented with quirkier stories with its Advanced Technology division. You learn some interesting new things; such as how the firm tuned the Dodge Viper to meet European regulations, and how it attempted to fix the handling of the Alfa Romeo Brera.

Each arm of the ProDrive story is stitched together beautifully with incredible photography to accompany it. To some, the engineering firm mainly specialised in rallying. But after reading this publication, you realise there’s quite a lot more to it than that.

An unexpected delivery through my letterbox came in the shape of Porsche Outlaws. We’ve featured a fair share of Porsche books on CAR Book Club, and I can say with confidence that none of them come close to the sheer fascination of this one.

It explores a substantial part of Californian Porsche culture, where slightly scruffy-looking, but tuned Stuttgart hot roads are the trend. It tells the story of all kinds of Porsche specialists that are famous within the scene – anyone from Magnus Walker to the safari-spec cars.

The best chapter for me was the story of the R-Gruppe and the immensely strict entry requirements to be admitted as a club member. I was glued for a whole afternoon on that section alone, and needed a coffee break before immersing myself into the next chapters.

Needless to say, the photography and depth which this book explores the cultures and personalities is amazing. The cars within aren’t bad either – and even as a classic German car enthusiast, I felt compelled to obsess more over the Zuffenhausen icons.

Brian Long has written books of impressive detail in his writing career, and we’ve only been able to explore a handful. Notable mentions include the Honda NSX autobiography as well as the Porsche 981 Boxster history publication.

His latest write-up to hit the shelves features the 991 generation Porsche 911. And needless to say, you can tell the research on the specifications, development, and model changes took an everlasting while before words began to meet the pages. It’s a perfect guide to those interested in 911s, and includes more than I ever needed to know about the 991 chassis.

It’s an engaging reading experience, too. One of the things I struggle with in some books is walls of text that aren’t broken up by sub quotes or images. But this 991 book made a perfect balance of high-quality press images along with the information clothing them.

With that said, you do need to be a die-hard fan to get the best out this book. General marque history readers will probably get a better kick out of a broader Porsche 911 history publication. But on the shelves of the Porsche museum gift shop, it would look right at home I reckon.

I’m taking a confident guess that the majority of you reading will already have a good gauge of what happened with Delorean. The father of the muscle car with the promise of providing jobs and prosperity to Belfast, which all came crashing down in a heroin-flavoured mess.

However, delve a bit deeper into the story – and there’s quite a lot more context and gaps to fill in. And that’s exactly what Matt Stone achieved with his new publication with Motorbooks.

To ensure you’re following the story as clearly as possible, it’s so chronologically laid out with not only what John Z Delorean did throughout his career, but the context and inspiration behind it as well. The DMC-12 took design inspiration from a multitude of other cars, which include the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing to the Maserati Boomerang concept.

One of my favourite parts is the original design sketches which display the evolution of Giorgetto Guigiaro’s design. Ultimately, he designed the Lotus Esprit to which the Delorean would be based on, so reading on how he changed it was nothing less than fascinating.

Having been to the Delorean exhibition at the Ulster Transport Museum in Northern Ireland, I can confidently say there isn’t this much detail about the DMC-12. This publication covers everything you need to know, and it’ll keep any keen petrolhead glued for hours.

We can’t finish up Book Club without mentioning our latest issue of CAR. We have some interesting new stories this time around, including ain in-depth look at the new McLaren W1 and a 300-mile trip in the funky new Renault 5.

But that’s not all: James Dennison tests the new V12 Ferrari, and we take you on a guide of the Dacia Bigster. As the name suggests, it’s bigger than any Dacia that you’ll be familiar with.

But what’s especially great about this new issue is that it’s the start of the new Agenda section. Sitting on the front pages of CAR from here onwards, it covers a number of stories analysing the state of the automotive industry and the figureheads behind it.

From Jaguar to BMW to Tesla, we cover a great deal of manufacturers and where they sit in the current, challenging spectrum that is today’s industry. What's more, there's a limited-time offer on hand where you can pay just £19.99 for six issues before paying £30 for six months, saving you 73% on the usual subscription.

We're taking inspiration from the Ferrari F40 with this beautiful art-deco coffee maker. Like the Ferrari, it's made from aluminium and made in Italy, but it makes coffee as opposed to 478bhp. First introduced in 1933, this coffee maker is simple to use and makes delicious coffee.